Fathom

Woot! Fathom business cards have arrived

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:34:49 +0000

Woot! Fathom business cards have arrived

Web App Design - The HTML/CSS vs Photoshop Debate

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:54:11 +0000

Do the tools you use dictate the end look of a design?

Dimitry Fadeyaev from Usability Post argues in a recent post, that the tools you choose dictate the end look of the design. It is an interesting stand point and one I kind of agree with, certainly when it comes to sketching with sharpies (or, as is my preferred method, the whiteboard marker) but I actually believe the answer is more nuanced.

First off, it is important to put the discussion into context - game design or a brands showcase website needs a very different treatment to a web app. As we are all about web apps that is my view point into the debate.

For a web app usability is crucial, making the content easy to find, read and manipulate has to be the primary focus. Therefore, using an Epicentre Design approach it is best to create your design as a web app right from the off. Hence HTML & CSS are the most logical choice.

However, focusing on usability alone, leads towards a “Jacob Neilson”, “design devoid of “design”. It is only when you marry usability together with visual design that you start to create a strong user experience. Therefore, you need to add just the right amount of visual candy to any HTML/CSS based layout. That means combining designing in markup and with the Creative Suite.

As probably the loudest proponents of this approach it is interesting to see how the design of the 37 Signals product suite has changed recently - they are still very usable apps but more and more candy is being added to improve the overall experience.

As an analogy, it’s akin to an architect who starts by focusing on the primary function of the building, works up a structural plan to make it all work then moves towards the materials, textures and colours to bring the building alive.

One Fathom is Equal To..

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:31:21 +0000

We’ve been doing a spot of background reading on our brand name.
Accordingly to the fountain of all knowledge (i.e. Wikipedia) .
One fathom is equal to:

72 inches
18 hands
6 feet
2 yards
1.8288 metres

And also, therefore:

0.5468 fathoms = 1 metre
0.1667 fathoms = 1 foot

We love this!

We plan on wiring these numbers directly into the Fathom brand, app and across the business.
Details of where and how will be shared over the coming weeks as things develop.

As an example?
Did you notice there are exactly 18 lines in this post.

Fathom is Getting Real

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:15:00 +0000

I have long coveted the idealist progression from agency to app business, as so seemingly, effortlessly demonstrated by the likes of Litmus, Campaign Monitor, Zurb and many others. With Fathom we are sticking our toe into that water, so far, the water feels warm and inviting.

Get Real

We have for some time been customers, admirers and followers of 37Signals. Indeed, as a client of ours put it recently, “Can you actually complete a sentence without mentioning 37Signals!”

With a well thumbed copy of Getting Real on the office bookshelf I have never been overly comfortable with applying some of the techniques to our agency set up. Sometimes it works just fine, but more often I have found it is better to be flexible and work in a way that suits the client.

Now we are embarked on our own thing, we have a chance to Get Real and do things our way.

With that in mind the black book is out again as source of inspiration for how we get Fathom off the ground and out into the wild as fast as possible. You can expect future thoughts, ideas and ways of working to be trailed and well documented here - heavily inspired by 37.

All in a days work

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Kicking off with a spot of vision setting from Fathom’s founding father, try saying that after a couple of beers, we broke the project down into what we could achieve in one day. (we do after all have day jobs building top notch web sites and apps for our clients).

So, what could we do in a day?

We kicked off this blog
We setup our twitter feed @fathomapp
We made a great start on brand definition
We started planning the application architecture
And we wrote our first “Fathom” - more on this later

All in all not bad for a day’s work.

Fathom is Born!

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:30:00 +0000

Roxxor are thrilled to announce the safe arrival of Fathom 05:46 on the 21st January 2011.

After an 18 month gestation period, Fathom came into being this morning.

The Roxxor team are all delighted and are doing well.